Personal Narrative: Moving Away From Home

As teenagers, we tend to think that we don't need our parents help, but I must admit that it’s not easy living without either one by your side. For my second year of high school, I moved away from home and became a boarder at Bolles. At first, I was so overly excited to be away from home because I thought I was about to have all the freedom in the world. Well, soon enough I learned that I thought wrong. Of course, being in the dorm environment consisted of certain rules to ensure our safety and of course there were rules that the borders, including myself did and do not agree on. Over the past three years, I have observed that the boarder population feels like some rules are not made for our safety, but made to stop us from having a little

Then it would come the time where I thought I was free again, and before I knew it, I was grounded again. Now, my mom, some of the boarders, day student friends, my college counselor, and myself agreed that some of the punishments I received were too much and out of line. But no matter how much my mom tried to make it better for me, nothing ever changed. So I just had to take it and watch the cycle repeat. It was a cycle of where I would begin to build trust that the dorm moms were here for my best interest and wanted to make things better and help me, but one definitely proved that was not the case. I admit, I am to blame for some cases but others unquestionably shouldn't have happened or gotten me into trouble. Even if I shouldn’t be getting in trouble, I did one way or another. It got to a point where I felt like I couldn't breathe without getting into trouble. I stopped thinking positively and was filled with negative thoughts. This year I have felt like one of the dorm mom’s target, and others have said it too. However, I had a breaking point. I simply couldn't take me getting in trouble or the punishments anymore because I felt like this entire year that's all that has ever happened to me. I started to have nervous breakdowns and couldn't get through a day without crying about my situation or talking to someone about it. I don't believe I was in depression, but I definitely felt depressed when I had to go back to the dorms. I dreaded it. In the Heart of Darkness, the narrator says, “The old doctor felt my pulse…and then with certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head” (Conrad 11). Here, the doctor is checking to see if the narrator is sane, and similarly, I felt like I need to be checked by a doctor. I believed I was losing my sanity and how I thought and